Lessons for DOGE and beyond: How to measure – and improve – the effectiveness of government
Governments around the world have rarely faced as much pressure as they do now. Already this decade, public services have faced a once-in-a-century pandemic, high inflation, budgetary pressures, volatility caused by global conflicts, and increasing workplace pressures.
Amid these pressures, how can government services still work effectively?
The new US Department of Government Efficiency is one of many ongoing government initiatives intended to improve efficiency in government, and this webinar brought together public servants and government experts to share lessons on how governments can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how they work. The session discussed ways to improve efficiency and reform services, and how to make improvements to the processes and technologies underpinning the way the government works.
Join this session to discuss:
- The services that matter most to citizens, and how they can be delivered most effectively.
- How to measure the performance of government services.
- How to identify areas of inefficiency – and where digital services can be deployed to improve the experience of using government services.
Panel
Max Stier, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service
Max is the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. Under his leadership, the Partnership has been widely praised as a first-class nonprofit organization and thought leader on federal government management issues.
Max has worked previously in all three branches of the federal government. In 1982, he served on the personal staff of Congressman Jim Leach. Max clerked for Chief Judge James Oakes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1992 and clerked for Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court in 1994. Between these two positions, Max served as Special Litigation Counsel to Assistant Attorney General Anne Bingaman at the Department of Justice.
In 1995, Max joined the law firm of Williams & Connolly where he practiced primarily in the area of white collar defense. Max comes most recently from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, having served as the Deputy General Counsel for Litigation.
A graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School, Max is a member of the Inaugural Advisory Council of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Administrative Conference of the United States and the National Advisory Board for Public Service at Harvard College.
Stephen Goldsmith, Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy and Bloomberg Center for Cities’ Data-Smart City Solutions, Harvard Kennedy School
Stephen Goldsmith is the Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Bloomberg Center on Cities where he directs Data-Smart City Solutions, a project to highlight local government efforts to use new technologies that connect breakthroughs in the use of big data analytics with community input to reshape the relationship between government and citizens. He also directs the Project on Municipal Innovation, a platform for cities’ mayoral senior staff to share and adapt best practices and innovative policy ideas that increase efficiency and improve the lives of citizens, as well as other projects, including the Civic Analytics and Chief Equity Officers Networks.He previously served as Deputy Mayor of New York and Mayor of Indianapolis, where he earned a reputation as one of the country’s leaders in public-private partnerships, competition, and privatization. Stephen was also the chief domestic policy adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000, the Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the district attorney for Marion County, Indiana from 1979 to 1990. He has written eight books on cities including, The Power of Social Innovation; Governing by Network: the New Shape of the Public Sector; The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America; The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance; Collaborative Cities, Mapping Solutions to Wicked Problems; A New City O/S, The Power of Open, Collaborative and Distributed Governance and, most recently, Growing Fairly: How to Build Opportunity and Equity in Workforce Development. He is a recognized international expert on governmental reform and infrastructure finance, speaking frequently at conferences around the world. A leading authority on local government and applied technology He writes regularly for Government Technology and Governing Magazines and has frequently appeared in national publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe and New York Times. In addition to his Harvard work Stephen advises cities and technology companies on how to improve services through well structured technology relationships.
Webinar chair: Siobhan Benita, Moderator, Global Government Forum
Siobhan was a senior civil servant in the UK with more than 15 years’ Whitehall experience. She worked in many of major delivery departments, including Transport, Environment, Health and Local Government. She also had senior roles at the heart of government in the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, including supporting the then Cabinet Secretary, Lord O’Donnell, to lead work on civil service reform and strategy. Siobhan left to run as an independent candidate in the Mayor of London election. She subsequently joined her alma mater, Warwick University, as Chief Strategy Officer of Warwick in London and Co-Director of the Warwick Policy Lab.
